That sweetly prophetic evening silence, before the great feast of Good
Will, does not come over everything each year, even in a lonely cottage
in an abandoned farm in Connecticut, than which you cannot possibly
imagine anything more silent or more remote from the noise of the world.
Sometimes it rains in torrents just on that night, sometimes it blows a
raging gale that twists the leafless birches and elms and hickory trees
like dry grass and bends the dark firs and spruces as if they were
feathers, and you can hardly be heard unless you shout, for the howling
and screaming and whistling of the blast.

But now and then, once in four or five years perhaps, the feathery snow
lies a foot deep, fresh-fallen, on the still country-side and in the
woods; and the waxing moon sheds her large light on all, and Nature
holds her breath to wait for the happy day, and tries to sleep but
cannot, from sheer happiness and peace. Indoors the fire is glowing on
the wide hearth, a great bed of coals that will last all night, because
it is not bitter weather, but only clear and cold and still, as it
should be; or if there is only a poor stove, like Overholt's, the wide
door is open, and a comfortable and cheery red light shines out from
within upon the battered iron plate and the wooden floor beyond; and the
older people sit round it, not saying much, but thinking with their
hearts rather than with their heads; but small boys and girls know that
interesting things have been happening in the kitchen all the afternoon,
and are rather glad that the supper was not very good, because there
will be the more room for good things to-morrow; and the grown-ups and
the children have made up any little differences of opinion they may
have had before supper-time, because Good Will must reign, and reign
alone, like Alexander; so that there is nothing at all to regret, and
nothing hurts anybody any more, and they are all happy in just wishing